As luck would have it, I happened to be going to Wisconsin near where he lived on a project for the Dairy Business Innovation Center. We arranged to meet in a restaurant near Green Bay. Only problem was, the restaurant was no longer in business. Worse, it was a bitter cold winter day. I began to ask myself what I was getting myself into.
After about 10 minutes of standing in the cold, especially challenging when you realize I live in a tropical country, a spanking new purple Volkswagen beetle showed up. It was the kind with the flower vase on the dashboard. There was a flower in it. A muscular man with shocks of white hair, cargo pants, and a Texas twang emerged and introduced himself.
We shook hands, and laughed about the restaurant being closed. He was surprised as he had eaten there just two weeks before. We went into an Applebee’s nearby. I am not sure what I said, as my brain was close to frozen, but I must have said something right, as John leaned back, in his way, and said, with his lean Texas accent “I think I want you to come down to Mexico and we’ll see what happens.” I am quite sure he had no idea what he was getting into!
Pickled Pepper’s plant is in the state of Chihuahua, about 150 miles south of the United States border with Mexico. Chihuahua is the largest state in Mexico. The canine Chihuahua, a mountain dog namesake, comes from the state as well. Oddly enough, the state motto is “Ay Chihuahua.” Chihuahua leads Mexico in the production of nuts, cattle, apples, and universities. Its roads are ok, allowing for relatively easy transportation to the border. The people are proud and tenacious symbolized by their best-known citizens, José Doroteo Arango Arambula, better known as Pancho Villa, and the actor Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , better known as Anthony Quinn. But it is best known currently on the world stage because of its violent drug wars.
Organizations are made up of more than machines, raw material and processes. They are made up of people. The last thing needed was one more American riding in on his high horse with guns blazing like a modern day Teddy Roosevelt. Respect had to be earned. What would be needed was what they used to call the “common touch.”
Pickled Peppers Inc., started in 1988 purchasing pickles and pickled peppers in Mexico. In 1993, to secure a more reliable supply, the American owner partnered with two Mexicans to form a Maquiladora to produce and package fermented pickles and peppers.
A maquiladora is a company with Mexican and foreign partners. The Mexican company manufactures, the foreign company administrates. Under Mexican law, the foreign company pays less taxes, but must guarantee the Mexican company a profit.
There were over 390 maquiladoras in their state at the time this project began, before the crisis of 2008, employing more than 165,000 Mexicans. Pickled Peppers S.A. employed about 125 of them fermenting various spicy peppers and cucumbers, making diced pepper and cayenne mash, mostly for export to the United States.
By the year 2000 the company had settled in on producing mostly fermented pepper products as industrial ingredients, and some pickles for the local trade. Their expectation for profit when doing well was around 3%. This is not uncommon for ingredient producers.
Over the next six years profit dwindled until, in 2006, there were deep losses, followed again with losses in 2007.
Conflicting managerial agendas between the owner, the American manager on site, the Mexican managers on site, and the owner’s son made progress difficult. The company was focused almost entirely on its dysfunction than on its function.
The chill of winter had passed, so I visited the Mexican plant for the first time in March of 2008. Over the course of a few days I sat down and talked with key people. I walked the grounds and the plant with a quiet mind, simply looking. I witnessed a high level of dysfunction. I noticed the fear on the faces of the workers, heads down as I passed by. I listened to accusations, finger pointing, insinuations, and other signs of degraded morale in the ranks and in the executive offices. Like a detective, I asked questions, and tried not to draw conclusions. By eliminating what could not be true, what would be left would be the truth.
I spent the evenings in the hotel trying to piece together the puzzle. I needed to find a way in to the problem. I visually mapped the relationships between what I was seeing, what I was told, and what was logical using what is called a fishbone diagram.
I call the process Diamond Cutting. Like a diamond cutter, you study to find the seam that will yield the most beautiful diamond. There is always more than one seam, so you really have to study it. You need to fully understand the structure to know where best to strike. Once you make up your mind, you put aside thinking, take a hammer, a chisel and swing!
I had come to the conclusion that the best way for the owner to know if his son could handle running the company was to let him try. I call this seeing the blindingly obvious. There were simply too many people telling other people what do to, and contradicting each other; there was no unity of command.
At breakfast, the next day, hammer and chisel in hand, figuratively speaking, I told the owner he had to fire himself; to remove himself from the Mexican organization’s daily operations, and put his son in charge instead. If he didn’t, he would never know if his son could do it. I told him there was no way I could tell if those complaining about the son at the plant had cause, nor if he could operate effectively, without him being given the chance. I also told him it meant his son would have to agree to stay for a while on site, in Mexico, until balance was achieved and a replacement fully trained. It was too confusing for the plant to be run from thousands of miles away.
I told the owner to transform away from chaos and into control, he should begin a long-term process of education and training. That if we were to work together it would be, at least, a 4 to 5 year commitment. I was quite certain I would lose the job before it had really even started. To my surprise and relief he replied, “Well, I have tried everything else and that didn’t work, so I will give this a try.
That very day, we let everyone in the factory know he was stepping down as president, putting his son in charge of the factory, but would remain as chairman of the board. Everyone was shocked, exactly what was needed to change the momentum and prepare the company to change for the better. I had hit the seam with a hammer, and the diamond didn’t shatter.
(Excerpted in part from the eBook People Power and Profit at Pickled Peppers Inc., by Dan Strongin, one of the success story series from the Deming Collaboration Library available at the Kindle Store for $2.99: Available to be read on almost any device with the free reader available from Amazon:
More Pickled Peppers
As luck would have it, I happened to be going to Wisconsin near where he lived on a project for the Dairy Business Innovation Center. We arranged to meet in a restaurant near Green Bay. Only problem was, the restaurant was no longer in business. Worse, it was a bitter cold winter day. I began to ask myself what I was getting myself into.
After about 10 minutes of standing in the cold, especially challenging when you realize I live in a tropical country, a spanking new purple Volkswagen beetle showed up. It was the kind with the flower vase on the dashboard. There was a flower in it. A muscular man with shocks of white hair, cargo pants, and a Texas twang emerged and introduced himself.
We shook hands, and laughed about the restaurant being closed. He was surprised as he had eaten there just two weeks before. We went into an Applebee’s nearby. I am not sure what I said, as my brain was close to frozen, but I must have said something right, as John leaned back, in his way, and said, with his lean Texas accent “I think I want you to come down to Mexico and we’ll see what happens.” I am quite sure he had no idea what he was getting into!
Pickled Pepper’s plant is in the state of Chihuahua, about 150 miles south of the United States border with Mexico. Chihuahua is the largest state in Mexico. The canine Chihuahua, a mountain dog namesake, comes from the state as well. Oddly enough, the state motto is “Ay Chihuahua.” Chihuahua leads Mexico in the production of nuts, cattle, apples, and universities. Its roads are ok, allowing for relatively easy transportation to the border. The people are proud and tenacious symbolized by their best-known citizens, José Doroteo Arango Arambula, better known as Pancho Villa, and the actor Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , better known as Anthony Quinn. But it is best known currently on the world stage because of its violent drug wars.
Organizations are made up of more than machines, raw material and processes. They are made up of people. The last thing needed was one more American riding in on his high horse with guns blazing like a modern day Teddy Roosevelt. Respect had to be earned. What would be needed was what they used to call the “common touch.”
Pickled Peppers Inc., started in 1988 purchasing pickles and pickled peppers in Mexico. In 1993, to secure a more reliable supply, the American owner partnered with two Mexicans to form a Maquiladora to produce and package fermented pickles and peppers.
A maquiladora is a company with Mexican and foreign partners. The Mexican company manufactures, the foreign company administrates. Under Mexican law, the foreign company pays less taxes, but must guarantee the Mexican company a profit.
There were over 390 maquiladoras in their state at the time this project began, before the crisis of 2008, employing more than 165,000 Mexicans. Pickled Peppers S.A. employed about 125 of them fermenting various spicy peppers and cucumbers, making diced pepper and cayenne mash, mostly for export to the United States.
By the year 2000 the company had settled in on producing mostly fermented pepper products as industrial ingredients, and some pickles for the local trade. Their expectation for profit when doing well was around 3%. This is not uncommon for ingredient producers.
Over the next six years profit dwindled until, in 2006, there were deep losses, followed again with losses in 2007.
Conflicting managerial agendas between the owner, the American manager on site, the Mexican managers on site, and the owner’s son made progress difficult. The company was focused almost entirely on its dysfunction than on its function.
The chill of winter had passed, so I visited the Mexican plant for the first time in March of 2008. Over the course of a few days I sat down and talked with key people. I walked the grounds and the plant with a quiet mind, simply looking. I witnessed a high level of dysfunction. I noticed the fear on the faces of the workers, heads down as I passed by. I listened to accusations, finger pointing, insinuations, and other signs of degraded morale in the ranks and in the executive offices. Like a detective, I asked questions, and tried not to draw conclusions. By eliminating what could not be true, what would be left would be the truth.
I spent the evenings in the hotel trying to piece together the puzzle. I needed to find a way in to the problem. I visually mapped the relationships between what I was seeing, what I was told, and what was logical using what is called a fishbone diagram.
I call the process Diamond Cutting. Like a diamond cutter, you study to find the seam that will yield the most beautiful diamond. There is always more than one seam, so you really have to study it. You need to fully understand the structure to know where best to strike. Once you make up your mind, you put aside thinking, take a hammer, a chisel and swing!
I had come to the conclusion that the best way for the owner to know if his son could handle running the company was to let him try. I call this seeing the blindingly obvious. There were simply too many people telling other people what do to, and contradicting each other; there was no unity of command.
At breakfast, the next day, hammer and chisel in hand, figuratively speaking, I told the owner he had to fire himself; to remove himself from the Mexican organization’s daily operations, and put his son in charge instead. If he didn’t, he would never know if his son could do it. I told him there was no way I could tell if those complaining about the son at the plant had cause, nor if he could operate effectively, without him being given the chance. I also told him it meant his son would have to agree to stay for a while on site, in Mexico, until balance was achieved and a replacement fully trained. It was too confusing for the plant to be run from thousands of miles away.
I told the owner to transform away from chaos and into control, he should begin a long-term process of education and training. That if we were to work together it would be, at least, a 4 to 5 year commitment. I was quite certain I would lose the job before it had really even started. To my surprise and relief he replied, “Well, I have tried everything else and that didn’t work, so I will give this a try.
That very day, we let everyone in the factory know he was stepping down as president, putting his son in charge of the factory, but would remain as chairman of the board. Everyone was shocked, exactly what was needed to change the momentum and prepare the company to change for the better. I had hit the seam with a hammer, and the diamond didn’t shatter.
(Excerpted in part from the eBook People Power and Profit at Pickled Peppers Inc., by Dan Strongin, one of the success story series from the Deming Collaboration Library available at the Kindle Store for $2.99: Available to be read on almost any device with the free reader available from Amazon: